


Another's Hand

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Dissociation, Gen, Medical Torture, depersonalisation, derealisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8015197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The arm is this to Bucky: A tool. A thing not his own. A thing given to him, yes, but it doesn't belong to him any more than he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another's Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malapropism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/malapropism/gifts).



> Inspired by [This](http://ababelofprose.tumblr.com/post/149521888900/vaysh11-this-vid-does-something-incredible-it).

The arm is this to Bucky: A tool. A thing not his own. A thing given to him, yes, but it doesn't belong to him any more than he does.

 

* * *

 

He remembers his old arm, sometimes. Flesh and bone, fallible and  _his._ Given to him by his mother and father, given to him by God. There was no doubt - could be no doubt - that it was his. He knew his hands and knuckles and skin.

He remembers the feel of knuckles connecting with an idiot's jaw, the reverberations up his own arm to his shoulder, the texture of shirts on his palms as he pulled guys off of Steve.

This was his arm of flesh and bone.

He remembers how it swung as he marched, remembered how the weight of a gun sat in his hands, the feel of the butt against his shoulder. He remembers bumping his shoulder against Steve's - small-Steve and big-Steve - remembers the light ease of Steve's shield.

It was his arm. It was taken from him.

 

* * *

 

The arm is this to Bucky: A tool and a weapon and a burden. A leash tying him back to those who made it, those who can fix it, those who bolted it into his bones.

(He is under no illusions: he knows he will never be rid of it.)

 

* * *

 

He remembers the broken shattered thing attached to his shoulder, distant pained fingers getting colder and colder until he couldn't feel them any more. Remembers the bones poking out of his skin, digging into muscle, bones in pieces buried where they shouldn't be.

He remembers the sudden feel of warmth, of still not feeling his fingers, of still feeling pain.

He remembers when they cut his arm off at the elbow and the sheer and blinding pain of it. He remembers them cutting more and more and more away at what remained - with anaesthetic and without, depending on if they cared if he thrashed, on if they were testing his metabolism.

He remembers them digging into his shoulder, feeling as though they were digging into his skull.

 

* * *

 

The arm is this to Bucky: Something alien. Something Asset. Something that isn't his, was never his, can never  _be_ his.

It was made to be another's arm, another's weapon, just as he was. 

He can only take himself back.

 

* * *

 

He remembers waking up to the pain of his shoulder, to not feeling even the stump that had remained, remembered seeing metal fingers moving like his flesh ones and wanting to scream.

He remembers reaching out with metal fingers, throttling a doctor.

He remembers feeling nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

The arm is this to Bucky: A hated asset, just as he once was.

 

* * *

 

The arm is better now. Pressure sensors and pseudo-nerves that allow him to feel weight and momentum as well as just to tell it to move. He understands it better now, what it can do, after so long killing with it at his side, but it still isn't his.

(It was never his, even as they bolted it into his bones. Another man's arm controlled by another man's will to serve another man's purpose.)

(It is no more his than he was.)

 

* * *

 

Except ... he is his own now. No one owns him. No one is allowed to. Why should he have a dead man's arm bolted onto his bones, sewn into his shoulder? Why should he let it obey a dead man's will, serve a dead man's purpose?

He isn't dead. Despite all of HYDRA's attempts Bucky Barnes lives.

The arm is a tool to Bucky. But maybe it can become  _his_ tool.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very much appreciated!


End file.
